ROSE Blog: Rikki's Open Source Exchange

June 30th will be my last day in my current role at Linux New Media. I accepted a new position at an open source company, which I'll start next month. If I were ending all ties with Linux New Media, I'd feel the need to write a final blog post that thanks our publisher, Brian Osborn, for being such a great mentor and pushing me to challenge myself; our editor-in-chief, Joe Casad, for helping me keep my sanity and sense of humor in the crazy world of print publishing; our managing editor, Rita Sooby, for helping me become a better writer and editor, and for all her crazy stories about her life adventures; our production editor, Lori White, for dragging me out of bed in the morning to...

UC San Diego released a new study that highlights 10 "Hot Careers" for 2011 college graduates. Three of the 10 are tech-related:
Health Information Technology - "According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, medical records and health information technicians held about 172,500 jobs in 2008 (about 39 percent of jobs were in hospitals). Jobs are expected to grow by 20 percent, or about 35,100 new jobs, for the decade 2008-2018," the study says.
Data Mining and Analytics - "A study by students and faculty at the University of California Berkeley found that the amount of data in the world doubles every three years. For this reason, more employees are needed in the...

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) in Budapest. Even better, Canonical sponsored my attendance. Even better than that, I applied for the sponsorship because I was encouraged to do so by a fellow woman in open source, Amber Graner. UDS is a wonderful experience, and here are 5 fabulous reasons why you should consider attending the next one:1. You can get sponsored: Attending UDS was not in my company's budget for me this year, but Amber Graner reminded me several times that I could apply for a sponsorship. Finally, on the last day to apply for sponsorship, I took Amber's advice and completed the quick and easy application. Turns out, I had an edge...

The Gnome project announced that the Gnome 3.0 release included more contributions by women than any previous release, an increase the project attributes its new internship program. The Outreach Program for Women, which ran from December 2010 until March 2011, paired eight interns with Gnome project mentors. The Gnome project also announced that it accepted seven women to participate in the Google Summer of Code. Check out the press release for a complete list of the new outreach program and female GSoC participants, mentors, and projects.

Yesterday I upgraded my personal laptop (well, one of them) from Ubuntu 10.10 to Ubuntu 11.4 beta 2. I have a knack for finding bugs, but this time the upgrade was smooth sailing. I was reminded of what my friend said when I first installed Ubuntu for her: This feels like a really expensive system.Last Spring, when I helped that friend move to Ubuntu after her Windows PC got bogged down with malware and/or viruses, I wrote about the experience on my blog: 7 Tips to help your friends move to Linux. Since that successful move away from Windows, my friend hasn't needed much help from me. In fact, I think I went over to her house only once to check in and make sure everything was running...

Stephanie Taylor posted a reminder that the Google Summer of Code student application deadline is tomorrow! "All applications must be submitted into the Google Summer of Code site by Friday, April 8th at 19:00 UTC to be considered for this year's program," she says. Be sure to check out the list of 175 accepted organizations.

This week the Palmetto Open Source Conference (POSSCON) attracted a lot of students and people who are new to open source. Our web editor Amber Graner attended the event and said that this pool of attendees helped add energy to the event. Red Hat's Ruth Suehle also attended POSSCON and wrote an article, called Students in open source -- How do I get started?, about the talk Leslie Hawthorn (OSU Open Source Lab) gave. "Conferences and unconferences are an easy way to get started," Ruth writes. "You'll not only get contacts and potential opportunities, but you'll also see the energy and passion behind open source," she says.Today Sarah Milstein, co-chair of Web 2.0 Expo,...